Part 33 (1/2)

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

_June_ 2, 1870

I wish most earnestly for legal and social equality for women, but I cannot shut my eyes to what woman has already been--the equal, if not the superior, of man in all that is highest and n.o.blest and loveliest. I don't at all approve of any appearance of setting one against the other. Let equal justice be done to both, without any spirit of antagonism.... I can well believe in all the delights of Oxford, and envy men that portion of their life.

CHAPTER XII

1870-78

In July, 1870, public attention was abruptly distracted from Irish and educational questions by the outbreak of the Franco-German War, which followed immediately upon the King of Prussia's refusal to promise France that he would never, under any circ.u.mstances, countenance his cousin Prince Leopold's candidature for the Spanish throne. War came as a surprise to every one, even to the Foreign Office, and its real causes were little understood at the time. The entire blame fell on Napoleon. Only some, who had special information, knew that Bismarck had long been waiting for the opportunity which the extravagant demand of France had just given him; and very few among the well-informed guessed that he might have had a hand in contriving the cause of dispute itself. Napoleon, since his annexation of Savoy, had so bad a reputation in Europe, a reputation which Bismarck had managed to blacken still more in their recent controversy over Luxembourg, that people were ready to take it as a matter of course that Napoleon should be the aggressor. Finally, by publis.h.i.+ng through the _Times_ the secret doc.u.ment in M. Benedetti's own hand, which a.s.sured help to Germany in annexing Holland, if Germany would help Napoleon to seize Belgium, Bismarck destroyed all remaining sympathy for France.

Now, however, that the inner history of events has come to light, we know that it was Germany who fomented the quarrel, though both Austria and France must be held responsible for the conditions which made the policy of Germany possible. The significant suppression of the part of Bernhardi's memoirs dealing with his secret mission from Bismarck to Spain, and the fact that a large sum of Prussian money is now known to have pa.s.sed to Spain, [80] while the Cortes was discussing the question of succession, make it probable that Bismarck not only took advantage of French hostility to Prince Leopold's candidature, but deliberately instigated the offer of the Spanish throne to a German prince, because he knew France was certain to resent it.

[80] Lord Acton, ”Historical Essays and Studies.”

Napoleon, however, must be held responsible, inasmuch as since the close of the Seven Weeks' War, he had intrigued with Austria to induce her to revenge herself by a joint attack with him upon Germany, hoping that he might win with Austria's help those concessions of territory along the Rhine, which Bismarck had peremptorily refused him as a _pour-boire_ after Sadowa. Austria, too, must take a share of the responsibility, since through the secret negotiations of the Archduke Albrecht she had encouraged Napoleon in this idea. Both Napoleon and the Archduke were convinced that those South-German States which had been annexed by Prussia for siding with Austria would rise, if their attack on Prussia could be a.s.sociated with the idea of liberation. Bismarck's cleverness in picking the quarrel over the question of the Spanish succession, a matter which did not in the least concern South-Germany, proved fatal to their expectations. This triumph of diplomacy, together with the success of his master-stroke of provocation, the Ems telegram, decided the fate of France. As edited by Bismarck, the King of Prussia's telegram describing his last interview with the French Amba.s.sador at Ems, infuriated the French to the necessary pitch of recklessness, while to Germans it read like the account of an insult to German-speaking peoples, and tended to draw them together in resentment.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _August_ 24, 1870

Don't you sometimes feel that a few weeks' delay in beginning this horrible war might have given time to Europe to discover some better means than war for settling the dispute? We are full of schemes for the prevention of future wars. The only compensation I see for all these horrors is the conviction they bring of the amount of heroism in the world and of the progress made in humanity towards enemies--especially sick and wounded.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _August_ 30, 1870

Poor Paris! You may well say we must be sorry for it, having so lately seen it in all its gay spring beauty--and though no doubt the surface, which is all we saw of its inhabitants, is better than the groundwork, how much of good and great it contains! How the best Frenchmen everywhere, and the best Parisians in particular, must grieve over the deep corruption which has done much to bring their country to its present dreary prospects. I did not mean that any mediation or interference of other Powers would have prevented this war, but that there ought by this time to be a subst.i.tute found for all war.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _September_ 7, 1870

Don't you find it bewildering to be hurried at express speed through such mighty pages of history? And if bewildering and overpowering to us, who from the beginning of the war could see a probability of French disaster, what must it be to Paris, to all France, fed with falsehood as they have been till from one success to another they find their Emperor and an army of 80,000 men prisoners of war! But what a people! Who would have supposed by reading the accounts of Paris on Sunday, the excess of joy, the _air de fete_, the wild exultation, that an immense calamity, a bitter mortification had just befallen the country! that a gigantic German army was on its way to their gates! I should like to know whether many of those who shouted ”Vive l'Empereur” when he left Paris, who applauded the war and hooted down anybody who doubted its justice or attacked Imperialism, are now among the shouters of ”Vive la Republique” and the new Democratic Ministry.

Let us hope not. Let us hope a great many things from the downfall of a corrupt Court, and the call for heroism and self-sacrifice to a frivolous and depraved city--frivolous and depraved, and yet containing so much of n.o.ble and good--all the n.o.bler and better, perhaps, from the constant struggle to remain so in that atmosphere. Even if, as G.o.d grant, there is no siege, the serious thoughts which the prospect of it must give will perhaps not be lost on the Parisians. I, like you, long that the King of Prussia may prove that he spoke in all sincerity when he said that he fought against the Emperor, not France, and be magnanimous in the conditions he may offer--but what does that precisely mean? John says he is right to seek for some guarantee against future French ambition. Hitherto he has acted very like a gentleman, as John in the House of Lords declared him to be, and may still be your model sovereign.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 3, 1870

Your letter is so interesting and raises so many serious thoughts that I should like to answer it as it deserves, but can't do so to-day as I am obliged to go to London on business, and have hardly a moment. The kind of ”gigantic brains” which you mention are, I agree with you, often repulsive--there is a harshness of _dissent_ from all that mankind most values, all that has raised them above this earth, which cannot be right--which is the result of deficiency in some part of their minds or hearts or both, and not of excess of intellect or any other good thing. If they are right in their contempt of Christian faith and hope, or of all other spiritual faith and hope, they ought to be ”of all men most miserable”; but they are apt to reject Christian charity too, and to dance on the ruins of all that has. .h.i.therto sustained their fellow-creatures in a world of sin and sorrow. That they are not right, but wofully wrong, I firmly believe, and happily many and many a n.o.ble intellect and great heart, which have not shrunk from searching into the mysteries of life and death with all the powers and all the love of truth given them by G.o.d to be used, not to lie dormant or merely receive what other men teach, have risen from the search with a firmer faith than before in Christ and in the immortality which he brought to light. I believe that many of those who deem themselves sceptics or atheists retain, after all, enough of the divine element within them practically to refute their own words.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 4, 1871